ain
man, the truths which he recognizes as truths, these are not things to
be despised. Many a man whose mind has been, as Berkeley expresses it,
"debauched by learning," has gotten away from them to his detriment,
and has said very unreasonable things. But "Common Sense" cannot be
the ultimate refuge of the philosopher; it can only serve him as
material for investigation. The scholar whose thought is as vague and
inconsistent as that of the plain man has little profit in the fact
that the apparatus of his learning has made it possible for him to be
ponderously and unintelligibly vague and inconsistent.

Hence, we may have the utmost sympathy with Reid's protest against the
doctrine of representative perception, and we may, nevertheless,
complain that he has done little to explain how it is that we directly
know external things and yet cannot be said to know things except in so
far as we have sensations or ideas.

51. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY.--The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804), was moved, by the skeptical conclusions to which Hume's
philosophy seemed to lead, to seek a way of escape, somewhat as Reid
was. But he did not take refuge in "Common Sense"; he developed an
ingenious doctrine which has had an enormous influence in the
philosophical world, and has given rise to a Kantian literature of such
proportions that no man can hope to read all of it, even if he devotes
his life to it. In Germany and out of it, it has for a hundred years
and more simply rained books, pamphlets, and articles on Kant and his
philosophy, some of them good, many of them far from clear and far from
original. Hundreds of German university students have taken Kant as
the subject of the dissertation by which they hoped to win the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy;--I was lately offered two hundred and
seventy-four such dissertations in one bunch;--and no student is
supposed to have even a moderate knowledge of philosophy who has not an
acquaintance with that famous work, the "Critique of Pure Reason."

It is to be expected from the outset that, where so many have found so
much to say, there should reign abundant differences of opinion. There
are differences of opinion touching the interpretation of Kant, and
touching the criticisms which may be made upon, and the development
which should be given to, his doctrine. It is, of course, impossible
to go into all these things here; and I shall do no more than indicate,
in untechn